You don’t need more experience—you need new stimuli!

Robert Biswas-Diener describes this beautifully in his book “Positive Provocation”: repetition alone does not make us better. Experience without new impulses makes us more routine—but not more effective. If we want to grow, we must consciously seek out and create new experiences.

These can be obvious things—like spending a week in your own sales department, a day working alongside employees in the call center, taking on an international assignment, stepping into a turnaround situation, or rolling up your sleeves on a construction site.

“Wolfgang, that’s nothing new!” you might say. “Everyone knows that.”

But let’s be honest: when do we really step proactively into the unknown?
More often, we think to ourselves: “Yes, I should do that sometime—spend time in the call center or work in sales to experience firsthand what customers actually ask or expect. Or try reverse mentoring or shadowing to reflect on and improve my own behavior.”

All good ideas—but far too rarely do we leave our comfort zone.
Too often, we wait for an impulse from the outside. But that rarely comes. And so things just continue as they are—days, weeks, months, years. Routine replaces development. And in the end, we wonder why we’re no longer growing.

So don’t wait for stimuli—actively seek them out!

Allow yourself to be a beginner. Step into the discomfort, the unfamiliar, the inconvenient. Because that’s exactly where growth happens. And that’s where not only your leadership strength grows—but your life as well.